The Seven Legendary Sages

with religious knowledge. From these conversations, he learned how to legislate for the Romans, and he established the fundamental religious rites and institutions of Rome. In this way he encouraged the Romans to be less warlike and to live in peace. Numa also reformed the calendar, fixing the beginning of the year by the winter solstice, as did Plethon (see chapter 4).24

Numa recorded his divine conversations in two bundles of sacred books: seven in Latin on religious law and seven in Greek on ancient philosophy.25 He ordered them to be buried with him when he died, for he thought it better that the Romans follow the living religious traditions rather than be bound by static books. When his tomb was accidentally opened some five centuries later (181 BCE), the books were found, but the Roman Senate ordered them to be burned, for they considered them too dangerous to read or even to possess. Some scholars think they contained Pythagorean doctrines, which the Senate considered subversive.26

Next Plethon lists seven legendary sages, either groups or individuals, who contributed to the ancient theology.27 Among the “barbarians” (non-Greek speakers), Plethon mentions the ancient Brahmans of India, whom he writes are almost as early as Zoroaster.28 Their lawgiver was Dionysos or Bacchus, who came to the Indians from some other land. He writes that this is the same soul who, many centuries later, was reborn as the Dionysos of the Greeks, the son of Semele.29 The Brahmans, of course, were the priestly caste of ancient India, and several Greek sages were said to have studied with them, including

24. Anastos, “Plethon’s Calendar and Liturgy,” 206. 25. Livy, History of Rome, 1. 26. A. Delatte, “Les doctrines pythagoriciennes des livres de Numa,” Académie royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la classe des lettres et des sciences morales et politiques 22 (1936): 19–40. 27. Plethon, Laws I.2.3. 28. Plethon, Laws III.43.9. The fundamental meaning of barbaros (βάρβαρος) in ancient Greek is

“non-Greek speaker” (“babblers”). It was not always a derogatory term, and ancient Greek philosophers admired the more ancient wisdom of “barbarian” peoples such as the Egyptians, Persians, and Indians.

29. Plethon, Laws III.43.9.

Pythagoras, Lycurgus, and Apollonius of Tyana. Plethon also mentions incidentally the ancient sages of the Western Iberians, by which he might mean the Celts of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal), but he writes that none of their laws nor the names of their lawgivers have come down to us.30

Perhaps surprisingly, Plethon does not include the Egyptians among the non-Greek contributors to the ancient theology. He does mention their ancient lawgiver Mênês (the Greek form of Egyptian Min), the first king of Egypt and founder of the first dynasty. He “established a religion…with useless and bad rites,” according to Plethon, although the foundation of the religion was sound.31 Unfortunately he also set down laws that prevented later reformers from eliminating these defects, and so he is not in the Golden Chain.

Second among the ancient “barbarian” sages, Plethon names the Magi (Μάγοι, Magoi) of Media (a region of ancient Iran).32 According to Herodotus, the Medes take their name from the witch Medea, who fled to that country after she escaped King Aegeus of Athens.33 (Modern Kurds consider themselves descendants of the Medes, but scholars differ on the matter.)

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that the Magi were followers of Zoroaster and that they were the priestly caste serving the Medes and Persians. Plethon believed that the Chaldean Oracles, which were treated almost like sacred scripture among Neoplatonists, were handed down from Zoroaster and the Magi, and so he called them the Magical Oracles (Grk., Μαγικὰ Λόγια, Magika Logia; Lat., Oracula Magica), and that is what I will call them in this book.34 (See appendix C for Plethon’s Commentary on the Magical Oracles.)

Next Plethon turns to colleges of ancient sages among the Greeks, the first of whom are the Kouretes of Crete, whom he credits with defeating the false religious doctrines

30. Plethon, Laws III.43.9. 31. Plethon, Laws III.43.8. 32. Plethon, Laws I.2.3. 33. Herodotus, The Persian Wars (Histories) 7.62. 34. Plethon, Commentary 1, 14, epilogue. The name “Chaldean Oracles” is equally inaccurate; it was applied first in the Renaissance and was not used by ancient Neoplatonists, who had no specific name for these oracles.

of the Giants (Γίγαντες, Gigantes), whom he calls “godless beings who fought against the gods.”35 He writes that these impious men claimed that everything in the universe is mortal except for one creator god; in other words, they taught monotheism.36 The Giants were described as earth-born, and in fact Plato writes that materialist philosophers are like the Giants who tried to toss the gods out of heaven and drag them down to earth.37 With the force of irrefutable logic, Plethon writes, the Kouretes proved the existence of the supercelestial and celestial gods (described in chapter 3) and the eternity of the works of Zeus, of his children the gods, and of the whole cosmos.38 Thus, they defeated the false theology of the monotheist Giants.

Under this interpretation, the myths about the attack of the Giants on the gods (the Gigantomachy) are metaphors for the Giants’ false teachings about the gods. The ancient Greeks generally understood the defeat of the Giants to represent the triumph of Olympian religion—with its principles of cosmic harmony and rational intelligibility—over an earlier religion focused on violence and disorder. The materialist Roman philosopher Lucretius (c. 99–c. 44 BCE) thought it represented the victory of reason over superstition.39 According to ancient sources, the Kouretes were religious, scientific, and magical specialists, and also lawgivers in ancient Crete, which is why Minos called them down from their mountain to purify his palace after the birth of the monstrous Minotaur.40 Numa Pompilius was supposed to have learned magic from the Kouretes or a similar fraternity.

Next among the ancient sages of Greece come the priests of Zeus at Dodona, who interpreted the oracles of the god.41 Dodona was the oldest Greek oracle—predating even Delphi—founded in the second millennium BCE, according to Herodotus.42 The sanctuary was shared by Dione, who also delivered oracles there. An oak sacred to Zeus

35. Plethon, Laws I.2.3. 36. Plethon, Laws I.2.3. 37. Plato, Sophist 246a–c. 38. Plethon, Laws I.2.3. 39. Lucretius, On the Nature of Things 5.110–125. 40. Harrison, Epilegomena, 19–26, 50–52, 107–8, 184, 194, 246. 41. Plethon, Laws I.2.3. 42. Herodotus, The Persian Wars 2.54–57.

grew in the sanctuary of the temple, and the priests and the priestesses (called πελειάδες, peleiades, “doves”) listened to the oracular rustling of the wind in its leaves. It stood there until cut down by the Christian emperor Theodosius, who forbade all Pagan worship in 391–92 CE.

Next among Plethon’s ancient sages is Polyidus, whose name means “seeing many things.” 43 He was known for his prophetic abilities, his skill in divination, and his knowledge of life and death. Minos consulted him for his wisdom. For example, after Minos’s son Glaucus disappeared, the king visited the Kouretes, who told him to consult the person who could solve a certain riddle.44 Polyidus succeeded and therefore Minos ordered him to find Glaucus, and Polyidus discovered that he had fallen into a cask of honey in a wine cellar and drowned. Minos ordered Polyidus to bring the child back to life and he succeeded through his observation and herbal magic.

The sixth of the ancient sages is Teiresias, whom Plethon credits with much wisdom, including the knowledge of the soul’s ascent to heaven and its recurring return to earth: the doctrine of reincarnation.45 In mythology, Teiresias is a blind seer who practiced several forms of divination, such as interpreting the songs and flight of birds, seeing visions in the smoke and flames of altar fires, and reading the entrails of sacrificed animals. He lived as a woman for seven years (the result of a magical transformation). As a consequence, he was able to testify that women enjoy sex more than men, and according to some stories, Hera struck him blind for revealing this secret. In recompense, Zeus gave him the gift of prophecy, thus replacing his outer vision with inner vision.

The last of these ancient sages was Cheiron the centaur, “tutor to many heroes of his time, to whom we owe much knowledge and important discoveries,” according to Plethon.46 In the Iliad he is called “the wisest and most just of the centaurs.” 47 He was a foster son of Apollo, who taught him music, healing, prophecy, and many other arts, including astrology and other forms of divination. These he passed on to his protégés,

43. Plethon, Laws I.2.3. 44. Apollodorus, Library 3.3.1–2, 310–13; Hyginus, Fabulae 136, 115–16. 45. Plethon, Laws I.2.3. 46. Plethon, Laws I.2.3. 47. Homer, Iliad 11.831.